Well, obviously not, but the MBA certainly gives a sharp edge to your career prospects.

People, who aren’t persuaded by this statement, often start to cite exceptions such as exceptionally successful entrepreneurs- Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Steve Jobs with Apple, Bill Gates with Microsoft, or Igvar Kamprad with IKEA.

Great! This sounds like a solid argument,but let’s take a closer look at the aforementioned companies. Here is an exempt from an article, written for the Association of MBAs:

Mark Zuckerberg is widely acknowledged as the founder of Facebook, yet the Chief Operating Officer (who is responsible for the day to day running of the company), and the person who made the company such a financial success is Sheryl Sandberg MBA.

Steve Jobs was (in partnership with Steve Wozniack) the founder of Apple Inc, and it’s certainly true that both dropped out of college. Yet when Apple Inc was struggling financially in 2004 they didn’t turn to other brilliant college dropouts with innate computer science skills, they turned to Tim Cook MBA to make the company into the $730Billion behemoth it is today.

Other major companies that were launched by entrepreneurial visionaries, but the companies are run by business school graduates include Microsoft (CEO Satya Nadella - Mrs Melinda Gates also has an MBA), Google (CFO Ruth Porat), Walmart (CEO Doug McMillon), IKEA (CEO Peter Agnefjäll), L'Oréal (CEO Jean-Paul Agon - graduate of HEC Paris) and YouTube (CEO Susan Wojcicki).

Another study indicates that 12 of 39 technology-based companies, which are worth $1 Billon, have been founded or co-founded by MBA grads.

Okay good, but what about the publically-quoted companies? Do MBA grads have a place with them? Absolutely! Check out this infographic of MBAs at the highest level:

However, someone will probably say that this is a U.S phenomenon. Not at all:

Over 50% of FTSE-100 companies have at least one executive board member (CFO, CEO or Chairman) with a post-graduate qualification in Business Management. 34 of the 100 Chief Executive Officers of Britain’s 100 largest companies have an MBA.

So does an MBA equal success? These statistics certainly work in favor of this statement.